Sandy hit my town and I largely quit WoW. Then we had our first child and... wow WoW went out the door. I'm sitting here now, looking at getting back into the game and it looks dead to me. What's going on?

I realize these aren't the WoW-Forums, but they've always been full of trolls, cry-babies, and complainers.

But I'm looking at the front page of the forums and there's 1 poster who's posted 80% of the posts. Then I go to the Trade Skills or Class sections and there's a few recent posts and then stuff that's 1, 2, 3+ months old.... What's going on. Is WoW dead? I know it's lost a lot of players, but it had 12M player when I left.... What's the current status? Honestly, I'm just considering coming back and my worry is that I'm going to find, like other games, that my guild is shrinking, people are leaving, and the whole thing is slowing down.....

Anyone - any help? Oh - If WoW is dead/dying.... Where are you going? Please don't say RIFT - I was hugely negative on that game.

I resubscribed to WoW, to check it out after a good 6-8 months away from it. I spent about 10 minutes in the game before I logged out, feeling absolutely... nothing. Part of me is sad that I no longer enjoy the game, because I spent a good 8 years of my life on it. Another part of me is @#%^ing ****** off at Blizzard for ******** up my favorite game.

The new talent system is pretty neat from a balancing point of view, but it sucks major *** from a leveling point of view. One new ability every 10-15 levels and one new talent point every, what, 20 levels? Have fun leveling up to 90! Having played Rift a lot now, I could never go back to something as simplified and boring as the "choices" in WoW. I'm also willing to bet that a lot of people interested in starting up WoW are disheartened by the prospect of having to grind 90 levels while paying $15 a month for it, when other games let you do it for free. Said games also feature modern graphics, even physics, and give you something every level, whether just a talent/skill point or a new ability rank.

Then there's the content.

Pandaria is pretty... pretty. It's also completely not my type of content. Never been much of an Asiaphile (not meant as a derogatory term). I've watched my share of Jet Li epics, don't get me wrong, but this is just too much. The Brewmaster was a cute gimmick in WC3, but to devote an entire expansion to it was just a terrible move, in my opinion.

The enemies in Vanilla were classic "I will do bad things, because I am bad" villains. Then came Illidan and Arthas, which were more tragic villains in that they both started out as heroes, but were consumed by the very things they sought to rid the world of. Then Deathwing and the end of the Aspects - pretty big deal in Warcraft lore. All those enemies were tangible villains that needed to be ended before they did more bad things to the world. And they all had a background in the old RTS games.

In Pandaria, completely silly villains are brought in, and we have to care about them because of "blahblah quest text blahblah" that no one reads, because you have to do a million of them to gain a level-up. Take the first dungeon you come across - the Brewery. One boss is a giant ape, and the entire fight is obviously an homage to Donkey Kong. Another boss is a giant rabbit. The final boss is a floating mask conjured up from beer...

Yeah, can I go back to fighting Defias Bandits, please?

The bosses in this expansion just seem so intangible. We're fighting anger made manifest. Okay, cool, except it all looks like black smokey goo. And the Horde vs. Alliance plot was never really explored until four content patches into the expansion. The expansion opens up with a pretty nice battle between the two factions, but then it's all "Well, we're in Pandaria now, and this panda dude said we shouldn't be angry, so let's kill some of the local monkeys/fishmen instead".

Three levels into the content and I'm still killing local monkeys/fishmen, cutting trees, picking flowers and meditating on whatever. I've had it up to @#%^ing here with the hippie bullsh*t, honestly. Can I please get some enemies that aren't small monkeys, bees and smokey black goo? Please?

Bottom line: I just can't get involved in the story like I could in the previous expansions. The game is outdated compared to modern releases, the content has been simplified, homogenized and trivialized in the name of eSports, and I just don't give a sh*t about pandas. If this sort of content is your thing, though, I hear it's the best expansion since one of the other expansions. I just don't see it.

Edited, Aug 24th 2013 5:14pm by Mazra

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Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.

Unless you have some old friends who still play, it might be a bore. Pandaria came out almost a year ago (25th of next month). I've been playing for this last year. The longest I have ever played continually (I usually do like 3 months, then stop out of boredom for 2-3). There is a major update on the 10th of next month..and from what I understand it is the last major update for this xpack. So either the next one will come out much sooner then all the past ones (every 2 years give or take a bit), or there will be a year of little things here and there.

When i returned, it was to play with RL friends. They have basically thrown in the towel over the last month. All I can hope for is this next update, with the new raid, brings them back...

but...

FFXIV comes out Tuesday (unless you pre-ordered, and are playing now during early access). This is were I might turn my attention to. I still have like a month or longer of WoW time...but yea, I've leveled 2 to 90. It isn't any funnier the 2nd time around... raiding can be done through an easy mode LFR (looking for raid) system, so I've like seen the content and do not feel left behind.

WoW's not dead, past it's prime maybe but not dead. Player base has shrunk considerably, but it still boasts huge subscription numbers. The board here has grown more quiet over the years, and it certainly doesn't help we're in that late-expansion lull at the moment. Most of the old regulars have grown up, had kids, and don't have time to contribute like they used to (something I'm certain you understand, because gratz on the spawnling ).

I've moved on to SWTOR myself, because a great single-player MMOs works well with my general lack of free time. Did come back for a while this expansion, my Mrs did too. It's still a fun game at heart, has changed a bit, is the same a bit. It's just not for me anymore, I've done the same rotations for too long, time to move on or something. Check it out though if you haven't, someone may be able to send you a scroll perhaps?

Things probably play out differently on NA/EU servers. I manage to keep myself amused, if by no other means than being an altoholic. In some senses this expansion has been mildly unfriendly to altoholics, but there are now ways around the rep grinds. Some of the things are amusing (pet battles), some have potential (brawler's guild, haven't done it but it sounds like a bit of fun) and some are simply convenient (farming ... on a farm).

All in all, for late expansion I'd say they're doing pretty well. The next patch should do a great deal to smooth things out further.

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In Chinese: glasses are yanjing; eyes are yanjing, and the beer of Beijing is Yanjing. When speaking, the difference is in the tones. Did I just order a glass of beer or a glass of eyes?

I keep unsubbing to WoW but then keep coming back (active sub right now). Mostly because of my guild. Even better games can't offer the same experience because I've been playing with the same people for so long - other games just seem empty without guild chat. I haven't logged in for a few weeks though and probably won't until 5.4. When I do play it's really, seriously, 100% pet battles. So... yeah, not sure why I'm hanging on. Although pet battles are fun!

I don't think WoW is dead or bad or boring. I think these forums are a good representation of a large part of the player population, though, who've just been playing the game for so long now that it's hard to get super excited about it. Everything short of Cheez Whiz gets stale after 7 years.

I still play and most of the time I still enjoy it. I never was much into the lore of WoW since even in BC (when I started my first WoW session of ~1,5 years) I did not like how they resolved the plots from WC3. I still have a pretty good grasp on what's going on and why but I don't care if the story is good or bad because I never played WoW for its story. I play it because I like getting stronger with my main and to collect things. Achievements, mounts, pets, unique tabards, titles. You name it.

For about 2 months now my enthusiasm for the game is waning but I attribute that to the fact that I'm playing non-stop for 2 years and 10 months now. I don't think it has anything to do with the game itself.

But it really is a shame how quiet it has become here. I miss the flamewars when someone ****** off Theo, Bodhi, Jordster or Mental. Those were the times...

Edit to add: My server is far from dead. Even now at Saturday midnight there are random groups forming for current raids, for slightly outdated content form one tier ago and for Ulduar, ICC, etc. But then I play on one of the biggest German servers. There are many realms that are in fact dead or dying. Blizzards new feature of Connected Realms or whatever they are calling this merger can't come fast enough for a lot of people. I think we have something like 7 million subscribers as of the latest official figures. So still a lot but not even close to the 12 million we once had.

When I do play it's really, seriously, 100% pet battles. So... yeah, not sure why I'm hanging on. Although pet battles are fun!

i agree, they are insanely fun

i stopped playing a few months ago when my computer couldn't handle raiding.

will have a new computer by the time the next xpac drops but will have to seriously think about if i want to resub or not. part of the reason is that the friends i started playing with aren't involved any more, they may go to a new game and i may follow. another reason is when i stopped playing i wasn't in a good guild situation and i'm not sure if i want to spend the time to fix it.

i liked panda land overall as a side note. the valor grind before you start raiding and rep grinds are shit but overall i liked the content. the dread wastes story line was my favorite.

side note... stupid computer thinks valor & favorite has a 'u' in it...

WoW has become like that girlfriend (or boyfriend) that you've been in a relationship for a bit too long. You may still have a good time together here and there, but your interested are different now and you just don't click anymore.

WoW isn't quite dead yet, it's just that there are just more options and people have refined their tastes. The game has evolved and the community has changed with it. The style and mechanics have also changed considerably. It's a far cry from the game it was at its peak. The game people fell in love with a few years ago.

I'm assuming they'd do away with the 'u', like in 'colour' and 'valour', instead of the 'o'. Also not sure if they'd turn 'ph' into 'f'. There are still a lot of American English words with 'ph' in them. Sophisticated, Christopher, Phantom, Phhhhh, if you're trying to whistle with flour in your mouth, etc.

The 'f' appears to be European more than anything. Danish word for 'blasphemous' is 'blasfemisk', Christopher translates into Christoffer, 'sophisticated' is spelled 'sofistikeret', etc.

Anyway, the only American English thing that bugs me is that you're allowed to spell 'through' as 'thru'.

Edited, Aug 27th 2013 5:40pm by Mazra

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Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.

In American, we also have words like pterodactyl, where we just throw in random letters to confuse people with. That way when we call customer service numbers we can tell them our name is "Peter, that's P, as in pterodactyl, E as in early...."

"the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Hermann Goering, April 1946.